In today’s interconnected world, digital tools have revolutionised the way organisations engage with potential candidates. From attraction to onboarding, a significant amount of the recruitment journey takes place online. Yet many people encounter obstacles when researching and applying for a new job online. This can be due to disabilities, being neurodivergent, visual impairments, or if people speak English as a second language.
“Online accessibility is essential for our business to ensure that we enable neurodiverse candidates to interact with us online. Removing potential barriers for someone applying for a job means we don’t miss out on great candidates and can offer our clients the widest pool of talent available on the market.”
Nicholas Eveleigh, Group Marketing Manager at McGregor Boyall
What is Inclusive Recruitment?
Inclusive recruitment covers the entire candidate experience, from discovery and attraction through application, onboarding and beyond. It is the process of being able to offer a barrier-free experience where everyone can embrace and fulfil the entire recruitment journey on a level playing field.
It is worth noting that diversity and inclusion in recruitment are not the same thing, and improving one will not automatically solve problems with the other.
What Barriers Do Applicants Face Online?
Typically, when recruiters and employers think of accessibility, they consider only the physical access needs of disabled candidates and employees. Digital barriers during the recruitment process can stand in the way of someone discovering and applying for their dream job.
Individuals who are visually impaired, neurodivergent, elderly or speak English as a second language, often face a number of obstacles when researching and applying for a new job online. For example:
- Inaccessible websites prevent disabled employees from finding out about your job listings.
- Online recruitment portals without accessible forms and PDF documents exclude talented disabled individuals from submitting applications.
- Assessments and skills tests in inaccessible formats prevent disabled candidates from showcasing their abilities and potential.
- Inaccessible training materials impede the learning and professional development of disabled employees.
- Lack of assistive technology in the workplace hinders disabled employees’ productivity and ability to perform.
Did You Know…?
- About half of disabled applicants get an interview. This is compared to two-thirds of non-disabled applicants. (Scope)
- Less than a quarter (23%) of disabled people would disclose their disability in a job application. (HR Magazine)
- On average, disabled people apply for 60% more jobs before finding one. (Scope)
- 46% of disabled applicants rate their experience applying for a job online as ‘difficult to impossible’. (PEAT)
- Only 26% of job seekers think employers and recruiters make online job applications suitably accessible for people who speak English as a second language. (Jobtrain)
Why Should Employers Provide an Inclusive Candidate Journey?
Business Benefits
Creating an inclusive candidate journey is not just ethically right; it is also a strategic advantage for organisations in today’s diverse and competitive job market. However, many companies shy away from web accessibility and inclusion factors as they perceive them as being complex, expensive, or simply too difficult to work around.
However, this is a misperception, as the average cost of making an accommodation for a disabled employee is relatively low, and data shows that employees with disabilities take less time off and tend to stay with companies for longer. Other key advantages include:
- Drawing from the widest pool of talent available.
- Discovering new skill sets – neurodivergent employees are often creative thinkers and strategic problem solvers.
- Acquiring high-quality staff who are skilled, hardworking, loyal, and highly motivated.
- Improving innovation thanks to the wider perspective gained by having a more diverse team.
- Creating equal opportunities that make everyone feel included.
- Demonstrating fairness in the workplace.
- Improving staff morale.
- Showing customers and other businesses that you are committed to equality in the workplace.
- Increasing revenue and profits – there is growing evidence of links between improved inclusion and financial success.
Employment Law
It is against the law to discriminate against anyone because of their age, gender reassignment, being married or in a civil partnership, being pregnant or on maternity leave, disability, race (including colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin), religion (or belief), sex, or sexual orientation.
These are called ‘protected characteristics’ and these characteristics are protected from discrimination by law under many circumstances, including at work.
As part of the protection for people with disabilities, employers must make reasonable adjustments to make sure workers with disabilities, or physical or mental health conditions, are not substantially disadvantaged when doing their jobs.
This can be the more ‘obvious’ adjustments such as making physical changes to the workplace, like installing a ramp for a wheelchair user or an audio-visual fire alarm for a deaf person. But it could also be providing assistive technology to people who struggle with cognitive impairments, or even physical impairments, that limit their ability to use computers or other digital devices associated with their job.
How can Recite Me Help?
Recite Me’s innovative suite of accessibility on-demand tools makes websites accessible and inclusive for a diverse range of people:
Website Accessibility Checker
Our accessibility checker takes care of accessibility considerations for you, and in doing so, tackles several usability issues. It audits back-end and front-end web development processes by running 396 separate compliance scans in line with WCAG 2.2 and breaks down the issues you should be working to fix. The methodology follows a simple four-step process to help you increase your accessibility score.
Assistive Toolbar
Our accessibility toolbar promotes online inclusion by allowing end users with sight loss, cognitive impairments, learning difficulties, physical disabilities, and varying linguistic needs to access your website per their individual needs and preferences. Users can make styling changes to the page, translate the content into over 100 on-screen languages, have content read aloud and much more.
Organisations Leading the Way Providing Inclusive Candidate Journey’s
We already work with a variety of in-house recruiters and recruitment organisation’s who are leading the way in breaking down online barriers for candidates.
PageGroup
Established in the UK in 1976, Michael Page has grown to become one of the world’s best-known and most respected recruitment consultancies. Operating in 37 countries, Michael Page has taken responsibility for leading the way in providing inclusive recruitment to diversify talent pools across the globe.
Throughout 2023, over 131,000 pages were made inclusive using Recite Me’s assistive technology on the Michael Page website and the toolbar was launched 27,830 times.
Nick Kirk, Chief Executive of PageGroup commented “By making a few key adaptations, they can open job opportunities to a more diverse pool of eager and capable candidates who are ready and willing to work. In addition to our DEI Client Solutions team, Recite Me plays a pivotal role in our commitment to providing our candidates with a truly inclusive experience.”
KFC
The fast-food chain partnered with Recite Me to provide a selection of accessibility tools for website users to utilise when searching and applying for jobs on the KFC Careers website.
Everyone should have the opportunity to find their dream job. With our accessibility toolbar plugin installed on their careers site, KFC has dramatically increased their reach, enabling 24% of the population with disabilities to utilise their recruiting website.
Charlie Cruickshanks, Talent Acquisition Partner and Co-Lead of SEEN said, commented “Recite Me is a great tool to help candidates who are neurodiverse. 1 in 7 of us in the UK is understood to be neurodivergent and we believe it is higher in the food and beverage industry.”
Useful Links for Recruiters and Job Seekers
There are some great companies out there that specialise in creating awareness and removing barriers to help disabled applicants get into work:
RIDI – A non-profit initiative with the goal of creating disability-confident recruiters who help reduce the UK disability employment gap.
Inclusive Employers is the UK’s first and leading membership organisation that supports businesses trying to develop more inclusive practices within the workplace. Recite Me is proud to list Inclusive Employers as one of our clients.
Verdica – a recruitment agency specialising in diversity and inclusion, offering services to “Find a job with an employer who ‘gets’ you.”
On-Demand Webinar: Accelerating Inclusion in Recruitment
Tune into our on-demand webinar to hear from recruitment organisations leading the way in providing an inclusive candidate experience.
You will learn how you can tap into a wider, more diverse talent pool by breaking down barriers for candidates. The session will equip you with best practices, hints and tips on how you can provide an inclusive candidate experience.
